11

There was a tradition in the making in which Nick would do his dreaded taxes, Lieke would update and check on all her social media accounts, Marith would play the cello and Olive would be on a rug in front of one fireplaces, drooling at the cello bow. They all seemed fine spending their evenings that way.

Tonight however was the meteor party. Marith never could have thought she would have been the one to pull Nick from his isolation, especially because she lived a lonesome life herself, but after weeks of spending her nights either playing her instrument or staring outside into an unfriendly darkness she had felt a strong urge to attend an event.

Sweet Lake was decorated like a German Christmas market, minus the ornament-filled trees. The town’s square was glowing and beaming with strings of lights and illuminated stands that sold foods, drinks, star maps that glowed in the dark and souvenirs of the tri-lake area. This periodically recurring meteor shower was one of the few reasons tourists would bother to visit the remote area.

Nick, Lieke and Marith had been able to see the flickering of the lights from the heart of town when they had left the mansion. They had parked the car on the outskirts of the village between many others and continued to walk to the rocky shore of the lake, where they had agreed to meet the rest.

“So, is this the actual meteor shower that ‘our’ meteors came from?” Marith inquired.

“No, not at all,” answered Nick, “but we treat them as such anyways.”

“Why?” Lieke asked, looking at the dark road, no to sprain her ankles. Marith hadn’t bothered to dissuade again her from wearing high heels in a village encircled by wilderness and mountains.

“So we get to celebrate something during the darkest months of the year… and to cash in on tourism, I guess.” He snickered lightly.

“How will we be able to see them with all the light pollution from here?” Marith gestured at the twinkling maze of booths they were skipping on their way to the waterfront.

“You’ll see,” Nick teased.

It was busier than Marith could have imagined. The waterside was crowded with countless of locals, tourists and, no doubt, some of the homeless. People had brought plaids to keep warm and folding seats to rest in. Some were even carrying special camera equipment to capture the beauty of the space rocks that were expected to burn through Earth’s atmosphere.

Marith introduced Lieke, who was wobbling on the pebbles of the rocky shoreline, to everybody she hadn’t met yet, which was everybody, except Amber. Nick greeted the group with a ‘Hi’ and a nod of the head. He had met everybody at some point in time, since he had been born and raised in Sweet Lake.

“Duchess of Dutchness, who did you bring tonight?” Jonathan asked delighted.

“I am Lieke.” Marith’s little sister smiled her magical smile at the tall, dark, athletic twenty-something.

“And where are you from?”

“Amsterdam,” Lieke answered as she knew barely any American could pinpoint the United Kingdom of the Netherlands or Holland on a map.

“Well, more like Amsterdamn, girl!”

Lieke giggled joyful.

Marith was happy to see him like the cheerful and exuberant personality that she had met very briefly, that Saturday around noon in his parents’ store, before disaster would strike, but the maternal instincts towards her sister took over.

“That’s my little sister, Jonathan.”

“Yup, I probably should have known that.” He nodded apologetically.

“What about this weather, eh?” Amber mingled.

“Better than expected!” Juliette confirmed.

“Look what I bought!” Kyle entered the conversation.

“Booze?” Lieke asked with a hopeful expression that disappeared as soon as Marith shot her one of the many warning looks she had to give lately. If Marith was completely honest with herself she had to admit they were starting to wear her out a bit.

“No, one of those luminary maps.” He nodded back to the town’s radiant centre, while he unfolded it.

“You do know there are apps for that, right?” Will brought in with a chuckle.

“Yes, I am very aware, but I prefer to hold a piece of paper instead of an electronic device.”

“In that case you’re not one of many.”

“Shut up! This is cool,” Kyle defended himself.

The rest of the group surrounded the Prophet as he held the map against the sky and started to identify constellations to prove how handy it was.

Marith just stared up with her hands in her pockets. Even though the meteor shower hadn’t started yet it was beautiful. The Milky Way was already faintly visible. It was like a nightly landscape painting, framed by the dark silhouettes of century old treetops. Brad stood beside her. There was simply no more room around Kyle’s nifty star map.

“Where’s your polar bear killing apparatus?” Marith teased Brad, when nobody was paying attention.

“Well,” he started and sighed, “since the Kid doesn’t make civilian casualties I figured that the same goes for his pet and so I decided to not draw attention to us by carrying a massive rifle around.”

Marith nodded and snickered. “Smart move.”

“Besides, everybody is in possession of a clockwork now anyways, so it’ll be super hard for them to locate you or hunt for you.” He glanced at Jonathan as he said it.

Marith shuddered.

“You do have it on you, right?”

“Yes, at all times, as instructed.” She padded her pocket to demonstrate.

Brad nodded approving.

“Do you guys want to get some drinks from town, before it’s starting?” Vanessa wandered towards them.

“Sure,” Brad answered cheerful.

They walked past the jetty – the one where Marith and Will had first met - onto the paved road, followed by the rest of the group. After passing the banner they found themselves among a merry crowd.

“They serve alcohol here?” Marith asked.

“Yes, at the bar’s stand, but you’ll have to show an ID,” Brad answered.

They briefly gathered, before losing each other completely without a plan.

“Okay,” Vanessa took charge, “we are going to get some glühwein…”

She glanced at Amber, who knew the message behind those words and remembered what she was supposed to do.

“We can go to the Sweet Tooth’s booth,” Amber suggested enthusiastically, “and get some hot chocolate. I can get us a discount.”

Vanessa nodded gratefully at her. Amber took Kyle and Lieke with her and soon disappeared into the tipsy mass. Jonathan quickly followed them, since that was where Lieke was going. Marith, Nick, Brad and Juliette followed Vanessa to the Drunken Den’s stand. William and Lisa went their own way and agreed upon meeting the lot later again at the jetty.

Marith followed Vanessa meekly while she elbowed herself a way through Sweet Lake’s sparkling centre. In front of the pub stood a wooden stall with two bent and misshapen dens, crafted out of wooden panels, on either side. On a gas cooker sat a big pan filled with the warm beverage they came for. A bartender was stirring it with a ladle. Marith saw oranges, anise stars and cinnamon sticks floating in the deep red brewage. It smelled nostalgic.

Juliette and Brad stood in line and ordered the drinks while Vanessa and Marith looked at what the other booths had to offer. Nick followed them mindlessly. Next to the stand of the Drunken Den was a stand that sold glass ornaments in the shapes of snowflakes, fallings stars and local trees and wildlife. The neighbouring booth came from Spectre Lake’s jewellery store and offered simple, but locally crafted adornments, set with semiprecious stones. Just when they managed to shuffle closer to it Marith was poked in the back by an elbow. It belonged to Juliette. She was handed a glass mug with the logo of the pub engraved in it. Vanessa and Nick received their drinks from Brad.

Marith sipped the concoction from her mug. It was pleasantly warm and tasted spicy and sweet, not at all like alcohol.

“You know where we could see the meteor shower even better?” Brad started.

“On the cliff?” Juliette guessed.

Marith nodded and continued drinking.

“Especially if it happens to get cloudy,” Vanessa brought in.

This is where the story started to get hazy for Marith.

“W-what about L-l-lieke?” She blinked heavily at the sudden difficulty of her speech.

“She can get to know Kyle and Jonathan and Amber better,” Juliette suggested bland.

“I’ll stay with them,” Nick promised. In a way he felt responsible for the youngest daughter of his close friend and attorney. He felt and looked a little out of place in the busy, wanton square anyway.

“We can take my truck,” Brad offered.

After finishing his cup Nick gave it back to the bartender and merged with the horde on his way to the others. Most of what happened after this part of the evening would be completely forgotten by Marith.

Vanessa, Brad and Juliette emptied their mugs as well, while patiently awaiting the bottom of Marith’s drink. Juliette stayed close by her side, in case she would lose control over her mobility. The Mist had a different effect on everybody. They couldn’t be too careful.

Marith was vaguely aware of being clenched between Brad and Juliette as she was escorted to his massive blue truck. It was parked right outside of town alongside the main road that swirled by all three towns. After being hoisted in the backseat she lost her consciousness almost entirely. She felt limp and weak and strangely at ease.

More or less parallel to the hiking trail Marith had taken to the hospital countless times before was, of course, an asphalt road. Considering the time it took to walk the same distance they reached the foot of the mountain that led up to cliff in no time. Brad took a sudden split away uphill that Marith hadn’t known about.

The elevation of the path and the odd angle of the vehicle slightly woke her up. They were on the dirt road that Pine Industries had paved to reach the cliff for the laborious process of building a church on such an ungodly location.

Brad parked the four-by-four between walls of thinning trees. The last part they walked past the construction site of the church to the cliff. Marith was clumsily dragged over the rocky surface by the two women to the point where Brad couldn’t take it anymore and swooped her into his arms to carry her further. Marith was distantly aware of this experience and felt safe and protected, but only because she didn’t know what was planned for her.

The perpetual breeze, that circled the abyss, made a bleak sound around the eerie skeleton of the church. Vanessa and Juliette shuddered at the chill and the thought of what they were about to do. This was most certainly the most precarious part of Vanessa’s side activities.

The Pupils proceeded to the rim. Their emanation made Oracle and Anica prepare themselves for two scenario’s, one being more likely than the other.

Marith stood swaying like the pendulum of a clock at the edge of the cliff, Vanessa right behind her. The most primal part of her brain decided to chime in on the occasion, as it appeared to be registering potential danger.

“Look!” She heard someone say behind her.

She looked. Falling starts traced each other in a colourful struggle under influence of Earth’s gravity.

All of the lights were simultaneously turned off in the community far below them. The difference was astounding. The sky turned the darkest shade of blue, which gave them a chance to behold the forces of the Universe. Even under influence it was magnificent. They gazed beyond their own worldview in silence as a cathedral of natural lights arched far above them.

The twinkling diversity of stars that painted the sky disappeared to the background as the meteors drew shining gold flashes against the dark heavens. The lake reflected the magical spectacle like a rippling mirror.

It was during those moments that deep own in the crater that had formed Sweet Lake hundreds of thousands of years ago a click was audible, only for one.

“Do you trust me?!” Vanessa yelled with a pale face over the gaining breeze. She tried to penetrate the Mist that was occupying Marith’s intoxicated mind.

Marith nodded drowsily. Oblivious to the fact that her life was about to fall apart and come together in the most disturbing ways.

Vanessa didn't even trust herself and Marith's drugged response didn't help at all in this matter. She had no choice, but to give her the Push and wait for the outcome.

During her fall Marith felt peace and fear simultaneously. She came to the surprising finding that these two emotions were not mutually exclusive. The prospect of a sudden, yet painful, death widened her eyes and dilated her pupils. Her heartrate went up so fast it might as well have stopped completely, but the wind blowing in her face and the soft sound of the waves breaking against the cliff beneath her were oddly soothing.

It must be nice to return to nature when one dies, Marith thought. She didn’t really ask herself why this was happening. Everybody dies someday. She was indeed slightly curious as to ‘why now?’ exactly. However, taking the time to think about this was a luxury she couldn’t quite afford at that moment.

A peculiar pain started to spread from her back to her neck and her limbs. First slowly, then all at once. Nervous pains, Marith knew intuitively. She felt like her spine was trying to fold over backwards, but at the same time it wasn’t. It was just hurting, real bad. Her hands and legs were cramping worse than any muscle ache she had ever experienced in her life.

She felt like screaming. Not because of her impending death, but to relieve the pain. Unfortunately, the air pressure caused by the fall had knocked all oxygen out of her lungs.

There she was. Just hanging in between life and death. Her fate as usual hopelessly out of her control.

Mid-fall Marith was pulled away. Pulled back, somehow. She felt as if someone had thrown a lasso around her waist and had jerked her away. Her bowel tried to leave through her mouth and her legs shot upward in an attempt to enter her torso. The debilitating pain disappeared and a deafening silence followed.

What came instead wasn’t any better. Marith’s soul was pulled in every direction. Every corner of our vast and complicated Universe had to be filled with the spirit of this young Dutch woman, lost in life and beyond.

As soon as the unknown force had found and determined a direction Marith started to fall again. While she tried to find out if this was an improvement, compared to before, she felt chaos, distress and order in the core of her being. All this was new to her, but it also made sense somehow.

She had no sense of orientation and therefore couldn’t resist what was happening to her, or what was left of her. Her remnants were pulled into an undercurrent that started to accelerate.

The destination was unknown, what she left behind wasn’t. She was worried about both. She was also worrying about still speeding up, worrying more and speeding up more. Was there a correlation? Was this the infamous effect of adrenaline surging through someone’s veins? Did she still have a body with veins for hormones to course through?

Slowly, but most certainly the deafening silence made place for a new… thing… something physical, something Earthly. Tinnitus.

Marith’s consciousness, her understanding, realised that the velocity she had gained was causing a sound. More and more and more sound.

It was the sound of speed. A renowned noise to Marith. Memories of riding her bicycle to school on top of the dykes, fighting the will of a raging storm, flashbacks of being beaten by gusts of wind on the beach at the sight of a stormy Nord Sea, trains thundering by her apartment, unsettling the autumn leaves on the tracks, all came back to her.

The moment there was no possibility, created by the human mind, to possibly go any faster the tumult descended into a monotonous tone. It could have only been produced by the tune of a recently rung church bell. The sound seemed to be getting louder and smaller.

The warm, hollow sound wasn’t dying, it was just concentrating. The vibrations were gathering in one point, one little orb, in the centre of Marith’s brain. Her brain, in her head, on top of her body. Did she have a body again?

Like a switch being flipped the sound was gone.

The life started to return leisurely to Marith’s body. Her soul tried to nest itself back into her human, Earthly wrapping… which was tough. She was hurting everywhere.

As soon as her spirit had returned to her body her heart started to beat again, languid and irregular. It had to bring back blood to every deserted corner of her system. She had a throbbing and abrasive sensation in her chest as her lungs came back to business. She needed air. Oxygen.

The blood in her veins carried that oxygen and brought vitality back to her organs. She felt how her body started to come back in an inert way. Her liver, kidneys, spleen and ovaries were rebooted like a computer after a shutdown.

Her joints were doing the best they could, while her muscles were still washy and uncoordinated. It almost felt like her bones were exhausted. She was afraid to move and wished she could just stop feeling.

Being disconnected had been relatively light and free. Having nothing but a soul to take after was inconceivably better. However, she couldn’t stop starting to feel again in a physical way.

“Marith?”

It was a soft, almost whispering voice. Nonetheless, it felt like fireworks were exploding in her left ear.

Marith realised she was on her back. Apparently there was gravity, wherever she was. The surface beneath her was flat and uncompromising, which Marith thought was quite inconsiderate, given the exercise she had just been through.

As if she had fallen backwards her head hurt and her arms were placed alongside her body. With her fingertips she felt how smooth and clean the floor was.

One by one it seemed all her senses returned to her. Although, she didn’t really need them at all in the sterile environment she had ended up in.

“Marith?” The voice was more urgent this time.

She turned her head to the left which alleviated the pain in the back of her skull. There was someone with her. For sure, now. The voice was attempting to invigorate her comeback. Which was exactly why Marith started to panic once more.

She couldn’t see who was talking to her. It didn’t matter how hard she tried. Everything within her vision was dark. This was not in the least caused by the fact that she couldn’t open her eyes.

It seemed to her that her eyelids were closed tight for her. She was lacking the strength to speak as well. This might have been a blessing in disguise, since she was uncertain about the response she would be getting if she did speak up.

Her forehead was stroked by somethings soft and tickling. A feather? Followed by a sweet, fresh whiff of air that wafted over her face. Marith realised this wasn’t wind. She sensed she wasn’t even outside.

She breathed in the air that was blown at her and her head jerked involuntarily and abruptly to the right so that she was facing the heavens again.

Her lungs were blown up for her and her ribcage expanded to the point of a near explosion. By an unknown force her upper body was lifted from the ground, while her head was dangling from her neck at an odd angle and her feet and fingertips were still in contact with the neat, silky surface of the floor. Her lungs emptied themselves again and she subsided.

Her body and soul had repatriated to the unity that once was. This was an absolute verity. She only had to open her eyes to see again. Balancing on the painful tip of the back of her head she realised clouds were drifting over her, far up in the sky. Marith and her companion seemed to be under some sort of dome.

It took a while for her eyes to focus. In the meanwhile she was breathing on her own. It was a comforting feeling to be able to inhale and exhale without interference.

She tried to move her arms in an attempt to roll onto her left side.

The brightest colours where visible at first sight. Her brain predominantly registered gold and white next to her. Shapes followed soon thereafter. Yes, there was definitely a person lying next to her. A woman. Her posture mirroring that of Marith.

Suddenly, Marith’s optical travels accelerated and everything before her was sharply visible at once.

Marith sighed and swallowed as she attempted to speak.

“D-d-d… doctor?” She rolled her eyes at her own tardiness.

“Doctor S-s-sybling.” Her tongue seemed thick, as if stung by a bee, and made her lisp.

She stared straight into the blueish grey eyes of dr. Sybling. There was one fine difference, though. These eyes saw her, registered her.

“You have met my sister.”

“Who are you then?”

“I am Sybil. You know me as Oracle.”

Just like her sister Oracle looked like she was all ages at once and, at the same time, had no specific age at all.

“I am sorry you landed on the floor. These things don’t always go as planned,” Sybil gestured at a king size bed, covered in thick bedsheets, fluffy cushions and the finest linen.

Marith sat up laboriously and stared at it for an incredulous moment.

“Marvellous,” she grunted, while stroking the back of her head, that was surely black and blue, in an attempt to heal herself.

She picked herself up from the floor. Help wasn’t offered and might have even been refused if it had been.

It was clear to Marith that she had been supposed to fall in the canopy sleigh bed. Also, there had been people before her. The thick curtains over the top of the mahogany construction that surrounded the bed were severely ripped.

Marith looked around the transparent room. A wide vista was unfolding outside of it, but she couldn’t quite focus on that yet.

In the middle of the place a very large telescope was situated. It was pointed at the heavens, with a robust, leather chair on the other end which the beholder of the stars could slump down in with amazement. The grandiosity and magnitude reminded Marith of the telescope she had once admired at the Leiden University Observatory, one of the oldest of the planet. Only this one was shinier and fancier and had no doubt special features most astro-physicists and astronomers could simply dream of.

Her gaze wandered to an elegantly designed antique desk that looked tiny in the ginormous space that seemed to belong to Oracle. Behind it, in a court chair, sat another woman, staring back at her.

“Hello, Marith.” She smiled.

“Hi,” Marith mumbled.

“I am Anica.”

Anica was dressed in an off-shoulder green dress, perfectly complimenting her olive-toned skin and dark eyes.

“Anica is my successor,” Oracle shared.

“Oh,” Marith brought out, pondering that for a moment.

The three of them were silent as Marith took in the rest of the space they were in. On the desk and all around it were little devices, like one would find on a Renaissance ship, used to navigate. Paraphernalia, like antique sextants and nautilus shells, from the age of adventurers.

The only difference was that these were moving and buzzing, in quite the same way as something obnoxious in her pocket. She stuck her hand in the pocket to hold the clockwork Kyle had given her a week earlier and frowned.

On the other side of the telescope was a shining grand orrery that resembled the one in the clock store Marith had visited with Vanessa right after her return. Its gemstone planets were orbiting each other swiftly and undisturbed.

Oracle glanced in her direction. Marith didn’t seem to notice. She was bewildered and distracted by the richness the spotless, circular room had to offer. Their surroundings made Marith wonder whether she was alive.

Her eyes finally landed on a humungous floor globe of planet Earth, resting in an ornate construction. A lot of craftsmanship must have gone into it. The orb looked old, but well preserved. Briefly Marith wondered if it would flip open and exhibit a variety of expensive carafes, filled with just as costly alcohol and crystal glasses, like the one Nick had in his study, in Sweet Lake. A village that seemed so far away right then and there.

After Marith managed to tear her gaze away from the abundance of new and old objects and equipment, necessities and accessories, she realized she hadn’t even given other dr. Sybling, Oracle, a second look.

Oracle smiled at her when she finally turned around. She had the same patient smile and high cheekbones as her twin sister. The tall woman was wearing a white robe. A toga, like the Romans used to wear, with gold embroidered details. The stitching gave the elongated tunica a tight shape. Her virgin dress was complimented with gold jewellery, swirling around her elegant neck, wrists and fingers.

“Where are we?” Marith dared to ask.

“On top of the world.”

Marith gazed upon vast snow-peaked mountain ranges that seemed to surround the circular space they were in. Their rough and irregular contours stood in sharp contrast to the deep blue sky that formed their background. Some lenticular clouds hovered alongside these snowy giants. There weren’t trees, like in Sweet Lake, just bare, snow covered peaks.

“I asked Watchmaker for the Swiss alps. They are very soothing to me.”

“It’s breath-taking.”

“It’s worth protecting.”

She glided towards the transparent wall, that was no doubt shielding them from icy weather conditions. When Marith followed her, ill at ease moving around again, she noticed the jewellery hadn’t been limited to her arms and neck. A shining net of golden wires and clasps held her voluminous black hair back.

Marith followed her, slightly wobbly. “Am I death?”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Well, I was pushed off a sky high cliff and it is… pretty bright here. When I left Sweet Lake it was dark out.”

“Watchmaker constructed this dimension so that every two hours we either get to witness a dusk or a dawn.”

“What even is this?” None of the things her brain was registering, made any sense.

“This is your Rebirth. Hasn’t Vanessa told you about it?” Anica had joined them. Apparently, her movements didn’t perturb air, since her shifting had been soundless.

“Not really. No. Should she have?”

“Not necessarily. The choice was hers. As long as the Mailbox accepts the one who gets the Push everything works out.”

“Do I return? To the others? To Sweet Lake?” Brief panic took over.

“Yes,” Oracle let out a slight, but polite chuckle. “When your Rebirth is completed, you are supposed to join the Chain and continue down the track you have been put on.”

Marith stared quietly outside for a moment. “So, this is one of the dimensions Watchmaker has created?”

“Yes, it is.”

“How could he make all of this?” She had gone back to amazement.

“I am sure you have learned that every Mage has a unique talent. The current Watchmaker’s talents are his determination and his fortitude, but the First Watchmaker’s talents were his astounding imagination and the cleverness that kept him one step ahead of his offspring. The circumstances forced them both to become amazing architects.”

“But still… How did they generate the power to create all this?”

“Oh, Watchmaker created much more than what we are gazing upon right now. The mind is unimaginably mighty and has an elusive potential.”

“Do you know what I will become?”

“A Mage.” Oracle slightly tilted her head as she patiently stared at Marith.

“What will my talent be?”

“It is up to you to develop a talent and practice your skills until you master them.”

“But how will I know what my skills are going to be?”

“Your mind can become anything you can fathom and the Well will allow you to create everything you can imagine in the Web.”

“And everything you can create, becomes a reality,” Anica added. “You have to believe you can bend what others perceive as reality and you have to believe that you can do it again and again, even on a grander scale. You have to believe that you can give shape to the world, your world, and every issue you may have, becomes weightless in the end.”

Marith didn’t know what to say and nodded diffident. Her timepiece cheerfully went on with its incessant buzzing, but she didn’t really notice it enough to take it out of her pocket again and give it attention.

“You have seen your own potency when you were at the Well. The Well gave birth to everything we see, including the human mind,” Oracle went on explaining.

“Does that mean the Well controls everything?” Marith asked.

“How so?”

“If the Well gave birth to everything, as you say, it also gave birth to the Web and everything in it…”

“Ah, I see where you are going,” Oracle interrupted her. “The Well gave birth to our minds and the Web, but it didn’t decide the course the Web would take. That is up to the decisions the entities within the Web will make.”

She looked out over the white mountains against the ultramarine backdrop. Marith noticed they weren’t actually white anymore. Tones of violet, pink and orange played over the planes of the rocky giants.

She wondered what it had asked of each Watchmaker to find their talent and to evolve to the point of being able to create painfully perfect new worlds.

“Are we moving or do these mountains have legs?” Marith asked suddenly with an undertone of suspicion and revelation. Relative to the objects in the peculiar and circular space they were in some of the mountain peaks seemed to have… shifted.

Oracle smiled an elegant smile of admiration. “Very astute. Not all Pupils notice it. This room is indeed constantly rotating directly proportional to the passing of time in the dimension you were pushed from.”

“There is time in this dimension?”

“No, not exactly, in this dimension the time in your dimension is supported and sustained.”

The buzzing and whirring in her pocket increased.

“It is also a safe space to hide from the Kid,” Anica added.

“He can’t come here at all?” Marith asked, ignoring the dysfunctional nuisance.

“That is correct. The Mailbox you slit through is only accessible to mortals… humans, with a clockwork, before their Rebirth. The Kid is an immortal. He will never be accepted.”

Marith picked up on a double innuendo as she said that.

“Is the Watchmaker here as well?”

Anica nodded to the one thing that interrupted the diaphanous round space. A rectangular and surprisingly ordinary grey door.

“To complete your Rebirth you will have to go through that door. You will meet Watchmaker and complete what was started.”

“O-okay,” Marith started. “When?”

“You have been given a pocket watch,” Anica said, as she opened a palm.

Marith fished the vibrating mess out of her pocket. “Keep it,” she snorted as she handed it to Anica.

“No, it was given to you,” Oracle said sternly.

Anica flipped the timepiece open and examined the face of the clock. The hands were now infuriatingly ticking away time as if that was what it had been doing all along. Marith gave it a betrayed death stare.

“What do you think?” Oracle asked Anica.

“I think it is time to run.” She closed the clockwork with a click and gave it back.

Dazed and startled, Marith slipped it back into her pocket. Oracle and Anica both stepped aside to make a pathway to the door.

“The way will show itself.”

Marith nodded, unsure of her options. As there didn’t seem to be any she made the bold decision to show herself out.

With the cold doorknob in her hand she looked over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said lamely, wondering what would be an appropriate thing to say right then.

Oracle and Anica both nodded. “The best of luck to you.”

On the other side of that trifling door a sudden rush came over Marith and she involuntarily started running. The long rectangular hallway that lay before her was as grey and dull as the door had been.

Another door awaited her at the end. She yanked it open and hurtled into a tiny triangular room. Out of breath, she gazed upon innumerous analogue clocks. The space housed pendulum clocks, cuckoo clocks, mantel clocks, an old-fashioned station clock, several types of hour glasses and even a massive grandfather clock, crammed in the tip of the triangle, behind an antique counter.

The old desk that withheld Marith from being able to take another step seemed to be the only piece of furniture in the room. The sole source of light was sunlight, which came through a round skylight.

Marith seemed to be alone in this peculiar space and stared up at the heavens. It was dawn. The day, that would apparently last two Earthly hours, was trying to break on the multi-coloured mountain ridges that where now out of sight.

Like a thunderbolt on a clear day the long, angular hallway and the tiny, triangular room moved a couple of metres to Marith’s right, which elegantly launched her against the floor. All clocks struck at once, hammering her eardrums with vigour. She covered her ears with her hands and rolled into a ball on the floor.

When they finally stopped she hugged her knees into a foetal position and thought about how this was a striking metaphor for her piteous inability to handle life, until she heard some rumblings, accompanied by a peculiar smell.

“Should have been here by now,” a male voice said, muttering to itself.

Marith picked herself up from the floor and tried to recover her hairdo as a short and elder man with a slight hunchback and a monocle was staring up at her.

“There she is,” he cheerfully and superfluous shared with a little hand-gesture. “Marith, I presume?”

“Yes,” Marith answered, slightly out of breath. “Are you Watchmaker?”

“Well, I sure am. I have some questions for you, Marith. Are you ready?” His voice almost sang at her as he spoke.

Watchmaker seemed to be from another era. He was wearing what appeared to be a custom-made tweed suit with a vest underneath, holding a pipe in one hand and reapplying his monocle with the other.

“Absolutely,” Marith said uncharacteristically bright to make up for her embarrassing plunge before.

He opened a shallow drawer, donned with purple velvet, at his end of the desk. It was filled with shiny clockworks. Some were open-face watches, but the insides of the drawer mostly consisted of hunter-case watches. They seemed to be asleep as they weren’t obnoxiously buzzing with excitement like the one in her pocket.

In a separate compartment of the drawer Marith noticed all sorts of tiny tools and utensils, waiting to be used. He took some of them out. With his free hand he put the pipe back in his mouth and hovered over the timepieces.

“Which one? Which one?” He whispered to himself.

Nothing happened for a few odd moments. Watchmaker unhinged the entire drawer and placed it on top of the desk before Marith. His movements where curiously smooth and fluent for a man of his age.

“You pick one,” he offered, lurking his pipe.

“H-how?”

“Like I did.” He repeated the hand movement over the clockworks.

Marith did as he told. With her right hand she made circling motions above the drawer. The pieces inside looked precious and costly and out of her world. Within each clockwork there were all sorts of components and particles that were probably able to move.

None of them gave her any sign of commitment, until she felt a tingling sensation in the palm of her hand.

It grew stronger as she hovered over a smooth timepiece, almost like electricity. The golden beauty awakened and started purring.

“Ah, we’ve got one.”

He took it out and made her hold it as he shoved the drawer back in. Marith and her clockwork fell in love for a brief moment, before Watchmaker yanked it out of her hands again, to perform some maintenance.

He kept the case closed, turned it around to work on the mechanics in the back, after gently removing the overlay. He had opened the back of the clockwork, which bared the magic insides of Marith’s newest companion. It bared the shiny, underlying, mystical workings of the horological wonder.

“What, my dear, is your biggest fear?” He asked as he went to work.

Marith let out a heavy sigh. “Being no use… at all... to anyone… ever.”

She remembered what she had told Lieke hanging up her ad for cello lessons. She just wanted to contribute to society and not feel like she is living a wasted life.

“What else?” He didn’t seem taken aback by this whatsoever. Like they were not in a giant structure that seemed to be floating amidst artificial mountain ranges. Like they were having a casual conversation over tea and petit fours.

“The water.”

“Of Sweet Lake?”

“It is so black and deep.” She shook her head and repressed a shudder. “There is evil in it.” She looked the Watchmaker straight in the eye. This was the first time she felt like she could discuss this and not sound like a complete idiot.

“What were your biggest traits. Up until now?” He started working on the clockwork again with his tiny instruments.

“Eh”, Marith hesitated. “I guess I was precise?”

“Were you mostly clairvoyant or mostly gifted with another talent?” He did not look up from his task.

“I honestly can’t say.” She really didn’t. All her gifts had come and went like the tides of an ocean, but on average all her strange struggles and habits had spent an equal amount of time with her.

“What was your biggest, unexplainable ability, apart from the visions?”

“I could often feel what others felt… and it hurt.”

He nodded and turned his work around in his hands.

“Did your visions accompany nightmares?”

“Yes!”

Watchmaker started screwing something on the other end of the round object. It gave a loud whirr.

“What has been your biggest pain? What have you missed the most in your young life?”

“Love, a soulmate, feeling secure, having a place, or a person, to come home to.” She spoke resolutely. This time she hadn’t hesitated.

Marith worried that she had just given the most basic answer. One that the others had also given him and was therefore useless.

“What are your hopes for the future?”

“Well, defeating the Kid, I would say.”

“Naturally, needless to mention.” Watchmaker wove away that answer, as to invite her to give a better one.

“To be happy then?”

“Why did you make that sound like a question?”

“Because I want to be happy, I really do, but it seems very… unattainable. I just don’t know how to be happy.”

“It sounds to me like you need to find purpose in your young existence. What do you want most in life?”

To discover my talent and use it, she thought.

Marith craved to feel like a part of this world, instead of being an onlooker of everybody else’s life, but she wasn’t sure how to put that into the right words.

“I want to matter,” she finally said.

Watchmaker nodded and placed one of the tools that very closely resembled a tiny screwdriver at the heart of the open watch. Out of another drawer he pulled a massive hammer and gave the bottom of the screwdriver the tiniest knock humanly possible with such a heavy tool. All the while Marith was holding her breath.

“There! All done,” he proudly stated. “This will be one of very few things in life that will outlast you. May this clockwork guide and support you on any endeavour you need or wish to partake in. May it serve you the way it was intended,” he finished solemnly.

“Would you like this one back?” Marith fumbled around in her heavy winter coat and fished the buzzing inconvenience out.

“No, you keep that.” He gave her an odd look. “You might still need it.” Marith thanked him for the new timepiece and shoved both clockworks in separate pockets.

“What do I do now?” She wondered, feeling very alien again.

“Take one step back and one to your left, please.” He indicated a spot close to where Marith was already standing. “Right there.”

Without making eye contact he slid the drawer back in the desk and pulled a levy that was out of Marith’s eyesight. For a few undecided moments she just stood there. Then the grey floor was pulled away from under her. With a scream that could shatter glass she went into a free fall, plummeting towards the simulated Swiss alps with their frequently recurring dusks and dawns.

Marith came to the conclusion that dawn was grossly overrated, especially when being hurtled towards it.